Yes, let’s. I’d consider it highly irregular if posting privileges were distributed based on income, with those earning under a certain amount per annum being restricted to two posts of five hundred characters or fewer a day. If the site’s bandwidth meant that a limited number of posts could be made each day, I could think of fairer ways to distribute posting privilege.
But you’re not smarter than the masses - you are the masses and you’ve already been brainwashed. Those other guys are the real smarter-than-the-masses guys. You’re not smart enough to know that you’re not smart.
And they can’t do that. It’s unconstitutional. Even if it’s pathetically absurd to even say that.
Good luck with that. Until then, you have to follow it.
We’ve never felt the need to take away a right enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and most people would be profoundly skeptical of any proposal to do so, as they should be.
This isn’t about fighting words or volume.
It’s his premise, and yours. It’s inescapable.
Okay, let’s try your analogy - should all ads be banned? Not just corporate ads - all ads? It’s speech access based on wealth after all. Straight answer please.
Should all spending on speech be banned, or at least rationed? Everyone gets $100 to spend on speech, to pay for Internet access, pen and paper, signs, megaphones, ads, whatever? Another straight answer please.
Both ideas are the logical conclusions of your insistence that speech must be equalized, not just free.
What would be the point of free speech that is in no way equalized? Its about having viewpoints heard, ideas shared, debated, considered. Your notion of mathematically precise equality is absurd, as you well know, but who says that because perfection is impossible improvement should be abandoned?
We are making it up as we go along, we are an experiment in progress. All those “rights” we claim, unalienable, a gift from the Creator who didn’t bother to write them down for us…we made them up, we simply said that we hold the truths to be self-evident, and that’s that.
You are surely within your rights to insist that free speech is some invincible ideal, never tarnished, never compromised, and the only thing wrong with that is that it just ain’t so. Doctrines of free speech have been twisted ever which way, even twisted to forbid unpopular speech. Doesn’t make sense that we are forbidden to twist it in favor of political equality in deference to a pristine purity it never had in the first place.
As Lincoln said “Let a thousand schools of thought contend, let a hundred flowers bloom!”.
Hey, great. But there is absolutely no legal basis for rationing speech by the government.
In any event, the idea that political ads are the only form of speech in election campaigns is silly. They are but a small portion. In between each ad is usually hours and hours of news coverage and opinion, for instance. And that’s just TV.
I know. That’s my point - it’s YOUR notion.
You cannot pick a certain source of speech and arbitrarily declare that they have “too much” speech and ban it altogether and then claim you’ve “improved” things. Not legally and not logically.
If you want to be fair to all, you have to ration speech, with mathematical precision. You can’t just pick on a few people, and ignore inequities among the rest. That’s not any more “fair.”
So amend the Constitution.
Good luck convincing people that the Bill of Rights goes too far.
I have not claimed that, but I do claim that your proposed exceptions to free speech, and your justifications for it, go far beyond anything ever accepted in our system, and are logically absurd.
Your saying that because we made mistakes in the past, we should repeat them?
Furthermore, you just don’t get it, do you? Those who twisted (good term) free speech doctrine to ban unpopular speech simply because it was unpopular JUSTIFIED their actions by claiming they were in favor of things like “political equity” instead!
I don’t think it’d be too hard convincing people that money has an undue influence in US politics and that the first amendment wasn’t designed to protect the right of corporations to spend an unlimited amount of money to attempt to sway voters before elections.
I am not attempting to equivocate, but it quite clearly is about volume in the sense of proportion. The side with money has a disproportionate influence. You’ve recognised that yourself:
How is apportioning free air time anything other than “rationing”? As it stands, that’s the form of political advertising I support: where airtime is not based on wealth, or even prior popularity. I fundamentally disagree with the position of the BNP, but I’d far prefer to have to endure one pathetic ad from them than be overwhelmed by a deluge of internecine and trite spats between Labour and the Conservatives.
If you’re going to misrepresent our positions, do so consistently at least.
He wrote:
The intention isn’t to preserve speech, it’s to preserve equality and democracy.
Yes, it would be hard, when people like me use my free speech to speak against it.
The people are very wary of any rolling back of the bill of rights, as they should be. It has never happened.
Yes. And that’s life. You can’t ever equalize influence. It comes with the help of money sometimes, or not. What if a famous celebrity endorses a candidate? That’s disprortionate influence. You gonna ban that too? Are you going to put a limit on candidate’s speech or spending? There are many ways that one side can have more influence. That’s the choice of the voters, to be influenced. It is all in the hands of the voters.
Because it wouldn’t involve any limits on speech whatsoever. It would just be a form of partial public financing of campaigns. Anyone could still buy ads or do any other kind of speech they want.
Tough.
The real world is not an auditorium. The speakers aren’t being invited to speak. Every speaker may speak, as much as they want.
Democracy doesn’t need your help. Banning speech is not how you protect speech.
I already mentioned free air time for candidates, which is basically a public subsidy for campaigns (that costs the broadcasters instead of the taxpayers).
We need to increase the ease of voter participation - elections on Saturday and vote by mail would help alot.
While the bill of rights hasn’t been amended, there have been clarifications about the extend of the provisions and the parties they are applicable to. Another, simpler method would be to clarify the 14th amendment as applying only to slaves.
ETA: Not the only way such a ruling could be accomplished. Another bill could outlaw hearings on the Constitutionality of limitations on disbursements for electioneering communications.
One can mitigate the undue effect of money on politics though. Opposing such efforts is the prerogative of the oligarch, aristocrat or plutocrat.
Yes, it would. Requiring the broadcaster to accept unpaid ads from one contributor deprives the other in relative terms. It also deprives every other company peddling its wares to the public of the time used. Would requiring every political ad be shown in omnibus form (Constitutional, Libertarian, Communist, Democratic, Republican, Green, etc.) be a limitation on speech?
Irrelevant to the fact that you misrepresented BrainGlutton’s point.
Hell, Lance, even my dog knows how often free speech has been infringed, for one reason or another! And he’s too drunk to hunt, half the time. Too lazy anyway.
Damn you! You make a dumb spelling error and force me to respond one last time to get a parting shot!
It’s “woe” not “whoa.”
Seriously, if you want to discuss something substantively, let me know. I’m not interested in watching you throw rocks at me from behind your mama’s skirt.